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I’ve written so much as a reporter about San Diego Comic Con that it’s somewhat difficult to sit down and write more about it, but with all the articles up online, it’s time to compile them here so people can find them and even see what they might have missed in the rush of reportage. It was my first attendance of San Diego Con and my first visit was also my first professional coverage of the con. That was intense. Also, I had very recently moved to Bleeding Cool as my home site, and since it’s a big news site, I was aware that it might be a little overwhelming being part of such a big team and staying on target to make sure I helped them out as best I could. The con was a total immersion experience, so much larger and more sense-overwhelming than the other cons I’ve reported on, but also quite an amazing testament to the rise of pop culture in the past 20 years. We are in a major upsurge of pop culture, and comics culture right now, and though that can get chaotic, it’s something to celebrate. But my experience working for Bleeding Cool was stellar.

The members of the team were each impressive in their knowledge and commitment to comics and pop culture, many of them educators with a strong desire to promote comics in main stream culture. Hanging out with them was a privilege and seeing the work they produced was dazzling. We fought the crowds, strategized, and brought back the stories for readers whether we ate or not, slept or not. It was an amazing thing. Thanks to all the great folks I met out there at our morning meetings and after-hours drinks- you made my San Diego so worthwhile. I’d like to particularly thank Rich Johnston, who was not only excellent at keeping us all on track, but full of encouragement and positive energy, and spent his free hours devoted to us, the writers, and enthused about all the great aspects of San Diego, even at its most crazy and bizarre.

I also spent San Diego sending the occasional article back home to New York for Dan Greenfield at Parallel Worlds for the New York Post, and that was a great experience of whittling down what might be of greatest interest to New Yorkers and picking out the highlights of the show from my personal vantage. That was an honor, too, and with Parallel Worlds gaining strength as a home for indie comics and mainstream news, I want to congratulate the site for its hard work building a place for itself in comics news.

Below, you’ll find, firstly, all my articles for Bleeding Cool from San Diego, and following that my articles for Parallel Worlds. San Diego isn’t for everyone, and it can be a madhouse, but its also an eye-opener about what part comics play in modern culture, so I would encourage people to go, at least once, and see what all the stories are about. It’s an experience you just can’t have on this level anywhere else.

Yes, it’s been awhile since NYCC 2012. It actually feels like far longer than it actually has been due to the massive disruptions to life as usual created by Hurricane Sandy. NYCC 2012 marked the end of a frenetic block of con-going before the more leisurely exploration of BCGF 2012. But time for reflection is not all bad. Looking back at NYCC 2012 I can see more clearly just how unusual an event it was, and how different the con became for me once I attended not just as a speaker, as in previous years, but as a reporter. A big thanks to Heidi MacDonald at the Comics Beat for giving me the opportunity to be part of a writing team at such a massive and exciting event. You’ll find no fewer than 8 links below to articles about NYCC 2012, a challenge that really tested my writing moxie.

I picked what I considered to be a reasonable schedule of panels to attend, but as those who attended NYCC 2012 know, numbers were astonishingly high and the new layout created some interesting challenges. Big thanks to friend Anica Archip who gave me safe harbor in Brooklyn to make all my coverage a little easier rather than commuting a distance. During the con, I had high and low moments, and the low moments were mostly due to sense that there was SO MUCH to do and so little time. The high moments were seeing some of the legends of the industry speak for the first time and continuously bumping into friends who made me feel part of the comics community at large.

On the day before NYCC officially opened, I attended the ICv2 conference on Digital Media held at the Javitz center. This was a very new experience for me. It started with the state of the publishing industry, and moved through various astonishing sneak-peeks and up and coming digital comics projects in various genres. There was plenty that went over my head, but what I did grasp opened up whole new worlds of thought for me. I didn’t try to cover those panels, but I did try to capture the hilarious and energetic “Fireside Chat” that concluded the event, featuring Talking Dead’s Chris Hardwick and seasoned Producer Fred Siebert. Who knew YouTube ruled the world? Find that article here for the Beat.

On the first day of NYCC 2012, I had the pleasure of chairing a panel with the creators of the photo-visual comics history and profile book Leaping Tall Buildings: Seth Kushner, Christopher Irving, and Eric Skillman, but then I put my reporter hat on and literally ran to some other panels to cover them. The first was the logistically triumphant appearance of legendary Irwin Hasen with a panel of friends including Al Jaffee, hosted by Danny Fingeroth. Hasen’s hilarious antics and the remarkable “Irwin Stories” from his friends made this a really celebratory event about the enduring charm of cartooning and storytelling. Following this panel, I managed to catch part of the launch of Sequart documentary The Image Revolution, directed by Patrick Meaney. An impressive array of Image personalities paneled the screening of segments from the upcoming film, and plenty of surprises came out even in those clips, including Robert Kirkman’s admission that he tricked Image into accepting his pitch for WALKING DEAD. Find both panels covered here for the Beat.

I spent the evening meeting some more Sequart people, including fellow Beat contributor Henry Barajas, Sequart editor Mike Phillips, documentary director Patrick Meaney and filmmaker Jordan Rennert. A few others too! It was a great time to actually meet people who I’d been conversant with online as a contributor blogging for Sequart myself and working on books for the comics scholarship press.

The morning arrived too early, but I was right back into the thick of it as the larger crowds started arriving. My first “crowded” day I wouldn’t say that I did a very good job of navigating the strange topography of the packed Javitz Center, with Artist Alley given its own brightly-lit wing. I met up with friends and attempted to actually storm the already crowded floor on one of my brief ventures into the retail zone. Then it was off to an Editing Panel featuring Dark Horse’s Scott Allie. Reading Dark Horse letter columns for several years had made me curious to hear him speak in person and it was a phenomenal, energy-charged panel with plenty of humor. Perhaps most surprising was the reaction from the audience to the generous Q and A opportunities. The majority of the audience raised their hands when asked if they were interested in editing comics personally or professionally. This really indicated a shift toward interest in professional comics careers and also the growth of indie-produced comics. Find that panel covered here for the Beat.

In the afternoon I waited in an enthusiastic crowd to hear Batman producer Michael Uslan talk about his life work making Batman dark again, tying into his recent book The Boy Who Loved Batman. Uslan was tremendously inspiring, and many a costumed groupie packing the room sat rapt with attention. It’s easy for a generation who grew up with Batman cartoons to take for granted the changes Uslan’s Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, brought to comics culture and its relationship to mainstream society. Uslan’s story was a reality check and he received a well deserved standing ovation for his work. This kind of panel made me very grateful for the NYCC despite its crowds and logistical problems. Find Uslan’s talk covered here for the Beat.

I was three days in and losing steam, but I knew that there was still a long way to go to capture the great moments of the con through articles and pictures. Saturday promised to be the most crowded and challenging day, and my expectations were close to reality. I had two goals that day, which I wasn’t entirely sure I’d meet, to hear Grant Morrison talk in some capacity and hopefully, just hopefully, to finally get a glimpse of Mike Mignola. Part of the reason that I’ve never heard either of them speak before is because I’ve only been attending NYCC for two years previously, and also because I have a general antipathy to joining long lines and thereby wasting time I could be taking in other aspects of the con. But this was a serious mission and I was prepared to adapt. In the end, neither line was unbearably long, and both panels were a high-point of my experience of the comics industry thus far. In fact, the large meeting rooms used this year at NYCC rarely found it necessary to turn fans away, though those desiring front row seats were well advised to arrive very early. I’ll add that standing in lines for panels enriched my con experience in unexpected ways: I got to talk to cosplayers. I got to discuss comics we all loved. I got to hear from con-goers why exactly they were there. Without that, would I have experienced the “real” con or just been too goal-oriented to take in the full scope of the cultural impact NYCC already has on fans?

Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughn, and Jonathan Hickman had some pretty deep and honest wisdom to spread to aspiring comics writers in their “Writer’s Room” panel. These were all pros for whom comics were still their passion and their greatest struggle, and that may have informed their sympathy for those starting out. Despite their vast successes, their advice featured elements of characterization, project management, and self-promotion that everyone could identify with. Again, almost all hands went up when the audience was asked who attending actually currently attempted to write comics. This makes me wonder what percentage of fans at cons are simply passive, enjoying the con, and how many are there with a dual purpose of genuinely pursuing professional opportunities. It was a very informative and worth-while panel with the extra bonus of seeing and hearing directly from nearly mythological comics creators in the flesh. Find that panel covered here for the Beat.

At this point I should say that many of the staff members at the NYCC were very helpful to me, particularly about panels, and this came in handy when running to the Mike MignolaHellboy in Hell panel. They scooted me in at the last minute and I decided to stand up at the back, which afforded good views and pictures, and I also came away with plenty of notes. Maybe I’ll go for this more mobile position in the future. This was personally enthralling for me as a longtime Hellboy reader, since Mignola promised to give some preview information about the late 2012 return of Hellboy’s adventures in Hell. The atmosphere was electric as Mignola talked about his enthusiasm for tales that take place in the netherworld and explained that this is all part of Hellboy’s story, not an afterword following his “death” in a previous arc. You can find what he had to say here.

In the evening, I got a chance to catch up with some of the great people who run the Comics Studies Conference portion of NYCC, associated with the Institute for Comics Studies (ICS) who bring great panel presentations every year for the more informed enthusiast, paving the way for comics scholarship in the popular sphere.

Sunday was bound to be a wind-down for me, limping toward a fifth day at the Javitz center, but the energy was just as high for crowds and participants once I arrived. I made a second venture onto the show floor and discovered, as always, aisles I had never explored, picking up a con exclusive of MARS ATTACKS THE HOLIDAYS from the Topps booth, featuring the work of Dean Haspiel, and chatting with Jim Salicrup at his all-ages comics Papercutz booth before trying to get my act together. I decided to attend Spider-Man’s 50th Birthday Party, a multi-media event in the bowels of Javitz. The cast, director, and choreographer of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark put on a mezmerizing show which had hordes of costumed tots dancing up on stage to the Spidey-moves from the musical. Reeve Carney performed an energetic rendition of “Boy Falls from the Sky” from the show, written by Bono and the Edge of U2 fame. It was a suitably celebratory atmosphere, and a fun family event to mark the big 5-0 for Spider-Man, recorded for the Beat here.

I let myself off the hook for panel going at that point and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in Artist Alley pursuing a lead on all the indie talent who had decided to set up shop that year. I chatted with Jamal Igle about MOLLY DANGER, Neil Dvorak about EASY PIECES, Frank Barbiere and Chris Mooneyham about the upcoming 5 GHOSTS, Matt Rosenberg about various projects including MENU, and artist and colorist Tim Yates about various upcoming projects. Spending some time at former Marvel editor, writer, and educator Danny Fingeroth’s table led to some of the most lively fannish conversations of the con, particularly about Spider-Man, with the constant flow of friends and colleagues stopping by. I wrote up my exploration of the “indie invasion” of Artist Alley here for the Beat.

I stayed right until the end of the con as the atmosphere finally wound down into the Artist Alley break-down of booths and the loading of trucks in mellow evening light. I had definitely seen things in “close up” compared to previous cons I’d attended, as well as getting a sense of the breadth and height of the 110, 000 people reported to have attended the con over several days. There were frustrations- particularly getting around, getting food, and trying to arrange meet-ups in such massive crowds, but with a flexible attitude it was navigable and more than that, essentially the biggest comics celebration of the year for the NY area. Sure, it was as much about Pop Culture, too, with its video-games, cosplay, and retail, but comics held their ground and made their mark even in such a throng of mass media elements clamoring for attention. Looking back, I realize that not only surviving the con, but engaging directly with some of the giants of the industry right now as well as having the opportunity to see friends who operate professionally in the world of comics worked to change my perspective yet again. It was a tremendous thing to be part of NYCC 2012. And to live to write about it.